omist cabinet, reported to the President of
the United States that the new government was satisfactorily performing
its functions, and entreated him to give no encouragement to the
revolutionists which would militate against its success. In April there
was another "election" for members of the two houses of the Insular
Legislature. On May 4 that Legislature met, chose Fernando del Casco as
President of the Assembly, and confirmed the Autonomist cabinet in its
place; and it continued patiently and valiantly to hold sessions, make
laws, and act as though it were a real government, exercising real
authority over the island, all through the period of the American war
with Spain and the practical siege of the island by the American navy.
When the Spanish forces yielded and a protocol for peace was signed, on
August 12, the Legislature held its last meeting, and was declared
dissolved by Blanco in October. The Autonomist Cabinet continued to
exercise its functions, at least nominally, until the end of Spanish
sovereignty in Cuba.

CHAPTER VII

There could be no greater mistake than that which has been too often and
too persistently made, in regarding the destruction of the _Maine_ as
the cause of American, intervention in Cuba. The declarations of policy
which we have already quoted from the messages of President Cleveland
and President McKinley, the former fourteen months and the latter two
months before that vessel went to Havana, are ample indications of the
purpose of the American government to intervene unless there were a
satisfactory amelioration of Cuban affairs. But there was no such
amelioration, and therefore war was declared. It unquestionably would
have been declared just the same, perhaps at a later and perhaps at an
earlier date, if there had been no _Maine_ at all.

Beginning before the destruction of the _Maine_, and accelerated after
that event, both sides were preparing for war. Nevertheless diplomatic
negotiations continued, chiefly conducted by the American Minister,
Stewart L. Woodford, at Madrid. In order to facilitate such
negotiations, President McKinley withheld the report on the _Maine_ from
Congress for a time. Spain asked that the pacification of Cuba, which
the United States was urging, be left to the Autonomist Legislature,
which was to meet on May 4. The United States, declaring that it did not
want Cuba but did want peace in Cuba, proposed an armistice to begin at
once and to last u